Jordfall 2/4 2021 Fireworks anemones and nudibranchs

 Hi and ho!

This weekend me and my buddies went to the Jordfall marina, a popular dive spot in Gullmarsfjorden on  the Swedish west coast. The weather was nice too, so it was a beautiful day for diving. We arrived at the spot in regular fashion, got the gear out of the car, divided into buddy pairs and got ready to head out into the water.

Spotted dragonet, with it's beautiful blue patterns on the pectoral fins

Dive 1

Depth: 32 m, Time: 46 min, Temp: 5 °C

Me and my buddy swam out to the end of the pier where we decided to start descending. We descended in a orderly fashion, keeping close to each other, as the visibility was very bad. After a bit, the visibility cleared up quite nicely, giving us a vis of about maybe 5 m. We followed the bottom down and towards the right side of the marina, where one seldom goes. After a while, we found a sunken pier, signaling that we had gone very far to the right and that we should probably start swimming to the left. Said and done, we started to swim towards the left, until it became time to turn upwards due to me running low on gas. When we found the cliff walls, we started following them towards the right, as one does when diving Jordfall. We ended the dive at 46 minutes. During this dive, we found a third fireworks anemone, one that we did not know of in Jordfall, as there are two relatively known ones at about 28 and 30 m depth. We found the third one at about 30 as well.

Fireworks anemone, not really a sea anemone, but close enough

Dive 2: 

Depth 30m, Time: 39 min, Temp: 5 °C

After a surface intervall, with lunch and relaxing in the nice weather, we got ready for a second dive. Like the first one, me and my buddy swam out to the end of the pier before descending. We followed the slope down and outwards, to the deeper parts of the site. Where we swam around for a while, looking at the sea pens and other sea critters. At about 29 m depth, I spotted a little something a bit away, turned out to be the nudibranch Armina loveni, a species that is rather uncommon to see due to its burrowing behaviour. After a while, it became time to head upwards, as I was starting to run low on gas once more, so we started swimming back towards the starting point. We ended the dive at 39 minutes

All in all it was a very nice dive day, with lots and lots of fun critters out and about.

So until next time! Keep on swimming!

Armina loveni is a uncommon species to encounter